Queers in History

Amazon Kindle, UK

Friday, 21 February 2014

Born this day

Anais Nin (1903 – 1977) French
Author

W. H. Auden (1907 – 1973) UK / US
Poet

Humphry Berkeley(1926 – 1994) UK
Politician

Barbara Jordan (1936 – 1996) US
Politician, who gained national attention for her intelligence, acumen, and oratorical skill as a member of the United States House of Representatives Judiciary Committee during hearings on the articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon over the Watergate scandal. In her career as a legislator and educator she was a vigorous proponent of equal rights, especially for African Americans and women. A deeply closeted lesbian, she did not, however, speak out for the cause of glbtq rights.

Keith Prentice(1940 – 1992) US
Actor

Sam Garrison (1942 – 2007) US
Lawyer / Activist

David Geffen(1943 – ) US
Legendary music promoter, film producer, entertainment business mogul and philanthropist.

Peter Hitchener (1946 – ) Australian
Presenter

Phil Reed (1949 – 2008) US
Politician

Isaac Julien (1960 – ) UK
Artist / Director

Chuck Palahnuik(1962 – ) US
Author / Journalist

Jenny Hiloudaki(1968 – ) Greek
Model / Author

Ramy Eletreby (1981 – ) US
Actor / Journalist

Died this day

Harriet Hosmer (1830 - 1908 ) US
Sculptor

Sodomy in history, February 21st

1788 — New York amends its sodomy law to also require the forfeiture of estate of convicted sodomites.

1903 — New York City police raid the Ariston baths and arrest 26 men for sexual activity (the first recorded raid on a US gay bathhouse). 7 later sentenced to between 4 and 20 years imprisonment. The others in the place are released with a warning and made to leave the building passing through a jeering crowd that had gathered.

1947 — A New York court upholds the conviction of a man for public indecency for sending a young man a letter stating his desire to fuck him. A month later, another court frees him because there was actually no law against what he did.

1963 — American Samoa passes a sodomy law, basing it on the Georgia law, so that two women can not be prosecuted under it.

1963 — The District of Columbia Court of Appeals upholds another solicitation conviction of a man with the corroborating evidence that he had put forth no character witnesses for himself.

1975 — The Washington Court of Appeals rejects a defendant’s contention that fellatio was not a violation of the state’s sodomy law.

Died this day

Laurence Housman ( 1865 - 1959) UK
Playwright / Author / Illustrator

Anthony Asquith (1902 - 1968) UK DirectorJohn Paul Hudson (1929 - 2002 ) US Activist / JournalistMarcella Althaus-Reid(? - 2009 ) Argentinian
Theologian, who applied the principles of the liberation theology she she applied in Argentina under the military theology, to sexual liberation and feminist theology. She was a pioneer in the development of queer theology, best known for her landmark books "Indecent Theology" and "The Queer God".

Jason Wood(1972 -2010) UK
Singer / Drag Queen [Cher Travesty]

Sodomy in history, February 20th

1775 — In Frisia, the Netherlands, two teenage servants are banished for three years for "toleration of sodomy."

1852 — Delaware eliminates the flogging penalty for sodomy and substitutes time in the pillory before imprisonment.

1939 — The Indiana Supreme Court rejects the contention of a man and woman convicted of sodomy that oral sex only between people of the same sex is sodomy.

1959 — The Idaho Supreme Court upholds the sodomy conviction of Gordon Larsen, one of the Boise victims, despite inflammatory remarks by prosecutors at his trial. The U.S. Supreme Court refuses to review the decision.

1973 — The District of Columbia Court of Appeals rejects a First Amendment challenge to Gay men soliciting for sex.

1974 — A California appellate court rejects a challenge to the constitutionality of the state’s oral copulation law.

Justin Fashanu (1959/61 - 1998) UK
Footballer who was known by his early clubs to be gay, and came out to the press later in his career, to become the first and only English professional footballer to be openly homosexual. Until former France international Olivier Rouyer came out in 2008, Fashanu was still the only professional footballer in the world to disclose that he was gay. Fashanu hanged himself in May 1998,at a time when he was wanted in the United States on charges of sexually assaulting a teenager in Maryland. In his suicide note, he insisted that the sex had been consensual.
Since his death, he has been frequently held up as a role model, to encourage other sporting figures to come out publicly.

A prominent American activist for gay equality. She organized the New York chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB) from 1958 to 1963, edited the national DOB magazine The Ladder from 1963 to 1966, and worked closely with Frank Kameny in the 1960s on the first picket lines that brought attention to the ban on employment of gay people by the largest employer in the US at that time: the United States government.

Sodomy in history, February

1854 — Alabama is the first state in the nation to make conviction of the "crime against nature" a specific grounds for divorce.

1893 — The Washington Supreme Court notes that Washington has no sodomy law, even though it is indictable under the common-law statute.

1957 — The Arkansas Supreme Court upholds the sodomy conviction of a man committed on a blind boy of borderline intelligence, after the trial judge determined him competent to testify because "he believes in God" and had the Bible read to him.

Monday, 17 February 2014

Born this day

Arcangelo Corelli (1653 – 1713) Italian
Composer / Violinist

Friedrich Alfred Krupp(1854 - 1902), German.

German industrialist, of the Krupp steel manufacturing company, taking over the leadership of his father's company in 1887. He committed suicide in 1902, a week after the Social Democratic magazine Vorwärts claimed in an article that Friedrich Alfred Krupp was homosexual, and that he had a number of liaisons with local boys and men.

Oskar Seidlin(1911 - 1984) US

Poet / Author

Sir Alan Bates (1934 - 2003) UK

Actor, who came to prominence in the 1960s, a time of high creativity in British cinema, when he appeared in films ranging from the popular children’s story Whistle Down the Wind to the "kitchen sink" drama A Kind of Loving. He is also known for his performance with Anthony Quinn in Zorba the Greek, as well as his roles in King of Hearts, Georgy Girl, Far From the Madding Crowd, and The Fixer, which gave him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. In 1969, he starred in the Ken Russell film Women in Love with Oliver Reed and Glenda Jackson, with a renowned fireside naked wrestling scene with Oliver Reed.

Although he was married to Victoria Ward from 1970 until her death from a wasting disease in 1992, Bates had numerous homosexual relationships throughout his life, including those with actors Nickolas Grace and Peter Wyngarde, and Olympic skater John Curry. In 1994 Curry died from AIDS in Bates's arms.

Peter Karlsson (1966 – 1995) Swedish Ice Hockey

Billie Joe Armstrong (1972 – ) US
Singer / Musician

Antton Harri (1974 – ) Spanish
Porn

Harisu(1975 – ) South Korean
Singer / Model / Actress

Eric Magyar(1975/6 – ??)
Porn / Director

Died this day

Jack Cole (1911 - 1974) US
Dancer / Choreographer

Randy Shilts (1951 - 1994 ) US
Author / Journalist

Sybille Bedford(1911 - 2006) UK
Author

Sodomy in history, February 17th

1755 — Georgia enacts a law making it a crime to deny that Georgian laws are in force, thus showing that English laws are not recognized. Since Georgia has no sodomy law, this shows that the English sodomy law was not considered in force.

1905 — In Ohio, a man is sent to the State Reformatory for sodomy even though the records state that he "proved" his absence from the crime scene. He spends two years in the Reformatory.

1923 — Utah amends its sodomy law to outlaw oral sex and to increase the penalty to 3-20 years.

Friday, 14 February 2014

Valentine's Day

Born this day

Kevyn Aucoin(1962 – 2002) US

Make-up artist and photographer. As a child, he used to frequently did his sisters' makeup and photographed the results. After dropping out of high school as a result of continuous bullying, he enrolled in beauty school, hoping to learn more about applying make-up - but ended up teaching the class instead.

He later moved to New York, where he was did several photo shoots and covers for Vogue and Cosmopolitan, and then worked for Revlon and the Japanese cosmetics giant Shiseido.

Karen Dior (1967 – 2004) US

Transgender adult film performer, director, and singer, best known as a pioneer in popularizing adult films involving transsexual people.

M. C. Brennan (1969 – ) US

Rock vocalist, screenwriter and filmmaker.

Angela Robinson (1971 – ) US

Film and television director, screenwriter and producer. She is married to fellow television writer and director Alexandra Kondracke

Lisa-Marie Vizaniari(1971 – ) Australian

Retired Australian discus thrower, who competed in the Olympics in 1996 and 2000, in the World Championships in 1997 and in the Commonwealth Games in 1990,1994, 1998

Rie Rasmussen(1978 – ) Danish

Actress, film director, writer, and photographer.

Seany O’Kane(1982 – ) UK

Reality TV [Big Brother]

Milo & Elijah Peters(1990 – ) Czech

Porn twins

Died this day

Tony Holiday(1951 - 1990 ) German

Pop singer and songwriter. He led a clandestine homosexual lifestyle,and died on Valentines Day, 1990 of AIDS at the age 38

Dick Martin(1927 - 1990 ) US

Artist who illustrated a number of books related to The Oz books series.In addition to books, he designed greeting cards, post cards, and posters.

Don Slater (1923 - 1997 ) US

An early leader in the struggle for glbtq rights. He was the founder of the early gay magazine ONE,and also an activist for several gay causes in Los Angeles.

Joel Dorius (1919 - 2006 ) US

One of three gay professors of literature caught in a pornography scandal and forced out by Smith College in 1960 only to be exonerated in a celebrated case of sexual McCarthyism

Sodomy in history, February 14th

1635 — Two men are charged with sodomy in New Hampshire, but are not prosecuted, because it was not thought "fit" to try them there.

1787 — New York, which has been operating under the English sodomy statute for nearly a century, passes its own law, retaining the death penalty.

1902 — A New York appellate court overturns the sodomy conviction of a man for sex with a teenager of limited mentality whose father coached him in what to say in trial.

1963 — The Washington Supreme Court upholds a sodomy conviction after the "victim" was asked leading questions in the trial.

1973 — An Oklahoma appellate court upholds a sentence of 15 years in prison for consensual sodomy.

1975 — Virginia passes a new criminal code, keeps consensual sodomy as a felony, and increases the maximum penalty from three to five years.